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Lesotho

Beneficiary and community activist, Matiisetso Sefako, after visiting Lesotho Planned Parenthood Association (LPPA) tent in her village, often stays behind encouraging young girls and women to visit the tent to access family planning services.

Raphel Marafan Kori, earns an income as a peer educator with Lesotho Planned Parenthood Association (LPPA). Nine months into her role, she goes door to door in her village trying to ensure parents understand the needs of adolescents in their village and why contraception and services like HIV testing is a protective measure for young people.

Village chief Makholu Mahao was 18 years old when she got married, that was almost 60 years ago. Now as a village leader, she is seeing a rise in teenage pregnancies and early forced marriage. With the help of Lesotho Planned Parenthood Association and funding from She Decides, she is getting the help she needs to encourage young people to seek contraception and other services like HIV testing at the outreach post.

Bolelwa Falten in based in Lesotho's capital, Maseru, and has been working as an HIV counselor for the better part of a decade. She handles five different Lesotho Planned Parenthood Association posts, providing communities with everything from contraception to HIV testing.

34-year old Makamohelo Tlali is a relatively new beneficiary of family planning services offered monthly at a Lesotho Planned Parenthood Association (LPPA) post near her village. She was encouraged to visit the family planning clinic by a peer mobilizer going door to door in her village.

When the global gag rule was introduced, the Lesotho Planned Parenthood Association lost more than funding, it lost the years of hard work in building trust and relationships in communities. With the introduction of the Belgian funded, She Decides programme, relationships with impacted communities are slowly being rebuilt.

When the Trump administration expanded the Mexico City Policy - also known as the Global Gag Rule - to deny U.S funding to organizations that provide abortion care using non-US funds, the impact was felt immediately by those who had worked so hard on the ground to bring healthcare to communities, especially in hard-to-reach areas. Thanks to emergency funds from She Decides, Lesotho Planned Parenthood Association is slowly rebuilding relationships and providing healthcare to those communities affected by the funding cuts.

One of IPPF’s central beliefs is that processes and approaches need to be adapted to meet the specific needs of a country. In Lesotho, a country with one of the highest HIV prevalence rates in the world, LPPA is very ...